Come Attrition, Come Hell
by Hornswaggler
Summary: He still has no idea what exactly he's started with this woman...all he knows is that he needs her to stay alive. Immediately post Day 13 one shot


**Author's Note:**

**That finale tho**

**We have been told that so far, Alan, Peter, Julia, and Sergio are confirmed for season 2. Everyone else is still in the air. I am convinced people survived until they tell me otherwise.**

****Post Day 13, because I'm a hardcore shipper.****

****The very last part was inspired by the lovely manip by teetotally, which you can navigate your way to by deleting those pesky spaces; teetotally . deviantart art Day - 13 - 442661569****

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It was cold. At this point he wasn't sure if the cold was from the searing heat or the actual Arctic, mostly because he couldn't tell how much time had passed. There was a ringing in his ears and a steady thrumming that might have been helicopter blades and might have been his own heartbeat or something else entirely. The sounds were muffled, hard to even notice above the ringing, and for the moment they didn't seem worth investigating too carefully.

_Explosion._

Right. That's what had happened, wasn't it? They'd been evacuating, getting people loaded up and then...something had gone off. The searing heat, the concussion of air and fire...and now the vague realization that he was face down on concrete and could smell burned hair.

Something was on his shoulder - or maybe it wasn't. It seemed to come and go a couple times before there was suddenly a bright light shining in his eyes and Sergio realized he had been rolled over. _Focus. _The ringing hadn't gone away, but some sounds were getting a little more prominent. He could see the lights being blocked for a moment but couldn't get his eyes to focus enough to tell exactly what caused it. _Dammit, focus._

There was a face above him. A face surrounded by a blur of red that should be familiar. They were saying something, he was pretty sure - that seemed to be the safest bet, and with a bit of concentration he could identify some of the muffled sounds as what were probably words. Words that seemed like...his name, maybe?

"-do this, come on, Sergio."

Anana. Everything slammed back into focus very suddenly. Unfortunately that included the pain; he was made aware of the pounding in his head that felt a little like a smaller version of that ice axe, one slightly duller pain in his right shoulder, and a vague prickling on his side and back that he could only assume was from the fire.

He met that realization with a curse, eyes squeezing shut and right hand trying to go to his head before the pain in the shoulder stopped that quickly. Anana was staring down at him when he pried his eyes open again and she looked about as bad as he felt.

"Don't move," she told him firmly, and for the moment he couldn't make himself protest that order too much. "Doesn't seem like anything's broken, but I wouldn't doubt a concussion at this point."

"No problem," he muttered. "Who - what the hell happened?" She glanced over her shoulder almost warily and for the first time Sergio noticed other people stirring - not nearly as many as had been in the room before, but some.

"Not sure. That...kid, I guess, he set off some explosions. He's gone, I think, but -" She cut off with a soft hiss, grimacing and pressing a hand to her side briefly. Sergio realized at that point that there was a small trickle of blood coming from her hairline - mostly dried now - and a few holes burned through the red coat.

He felt his hand fly to the inner pocket on his own jacket before really processing why. When he felt the folded paper there it became apparent quickly and he let out a breath, arm falling again. After all of that it would've been adding insult to injury to somehow have lost that damn list, but the paper still felt intact - not burned in the fire like it seemed a good deal of his hair had been.

There had been a good number of people in the loading bay. He'd seen explosions like that one before, and while they were survivable at the right distance, that's all it boiled down to. The survivors were always just those who were lucky enough to be far enough away from the initial blast. He could practically feel his military training kicking in and pushed himself onto one elbow to try and look around.

"Who made it?"

Anana seemed about ready to push him back down again but after a moment she swallowed, looking around her into the settling dust and smoke.

"Toluk's alright - he was right by the door when it happened. A couple of the doctors got out, but I haven't seen them yet. The people behind the Cat, though..." She trailed off and sucked in a slow breath, shaking her head. "He took down the entire damn base. You could hear it fall, it...anyone still in there is gone."

The base was gone. He found himself having to turn that over a few times in his head, trying to get some kind of decent hold on the idea. Not that he'd been here long - hell, it hadn't even been two weeks, and he'd spent a decent amount of that away from here - but for some reason the base had just seemed immovable. The people inside it were different, but the actual building itself didn't seem like something that could be taken down by one kid.

Then again, the Scythe couldn't exactly be considered one kid, could he?

"Hey, don't clock out on me - focus here."

He blinked twice at Anana's voice and vaguely realized his eyes had started going fuzzy again. _Hell _his head hurt...

"I'm fine," he said, a little less firmly than he would've liked. "We've gotta get out of here, get somewhere it's not..."

"You're not going anywhere right now," the woman cut in sharply. "You're doing well to be conscious, and hell if I'm losing you to some damn concussion."

That at least effectively cut off his efforts to sit up fully and Sergio blinked again, brow furrowing a little even as she glanced away. He didn't notice her peeling back the jacket until his shoulder gave a sharp throb and he chanced a look down at it. It seemed to be one of those injuries that looked a lot worse than it actually was, but there was definitely a good amount of blood soaking his shirt. Most likely some shrapnel had hit him or something, but at this point the continuing headache let him ignore it.

"That gonna need stitches too?" he asked offhandedly, and Anana met his eyes again with a quick glare.

"Ought to start charging you for all of those. You certainly rip them out often enough."

"Not always my fault, though. You were the one - _shit_, don't dig it out with a knife..."

"It's practically a knife already, I'm just pulling the damn thing out. Stop squirming and it'll hurt less."

It was suddenly so familiar, in a weird way, having her working at a wound and him trying to keep his grimaces to a minimum. The differences were still prominent - the smell of smoke, the other people who were slowly starting to recover around them, and the very obvious fact that this was far from a safe place to be right now. With this headache, though, he could let himself just focus on the familiar - at least for a bit.

"You're okay?" He didn't even notice he had asked it until Anana paused, looking up again with what looked like a little bit of a strained smile.

"Better than most."

"The rest of your people?" The hesitation spoke volumes and she glanced away quickly toward a large figure that had to be Toluk. Sergio resisted another curse and tried to shrug the coat back on. "Go, take care of them. I told you, I'm fine."

"Toluk can handle it. Someone's gotta look after your sorry ass - hell knows you don't."

He couldn't quite hold back a laugh and regretted it a moment later when that triggered a few hard coughs. He'd had a hell of a lot worse than this, but it was enough to be aggravating and to really want a decent drink or something.

"Didn't know you cared," he managed around clenched teeth, trying to work up a smirk instead of the grimace. Once again he didn't really consider his own words until her hands stilled. Anana seemed to consider him closely for a moment and then looked over her shoulder again.

She was kissing him a second later with the same desperation he had kissed her days earlier. It was fast and she pulled away just as he had started to process the entire thing.

"That's been twice I've thought you were dead," she said, voice low. "You've gotta stop doing that to me."

He sucked in a breath and felt both hands clenching briefly. There was a moment when he wasn't entirely sure what his expression should be doing before deciding that, for once, it might actually work to not think about it.

"You know I'm not good at promises," the man managed after a bit and Anana scoffed lightly.

"Then consider it an order, _Major._" She brushed a hand through the singed hair at his temple briefly, almost casually, before returning most focus on cleaning the shrapnel wound with the edge of her sleeve. "You're not getting away from everything that easily, understand?"

"Yeah?" He had to hold back another cough and vaguely wondered just how much smoke was in his lungs at this point. "And why's that?"

She glanced up again quickly and then smirked. "Well partly because I might be the only one who won't make fun of those eyebrows - or, y'know, lack of them."

Sergio's hand shot up to feel the spots and he swore when that only proved her right. There was still just enough to tell where eyebrows ought to be, but they had both apparently been burned off pretty thoroughly. Her laugh seemed a little strained, but it was impressive to manage at all given the circumstances.

"At least you kept most of your hair, right?"

He swore again for good measure, head falling back a little and his eyes closing. This was all hell. The base was gone, there was no telling how many people had actually survived, his head was killing him, and now apparently he had no eyebrows. It took him a few moments to realize that Anana was saying his name again, repeatedly, and he blinked his eyes open again with a bit of effort when she shook his uninjured shoulder.

"Gotta stay awake. I don't know how bad that concussion is yet, but I'm not about to risk it."

"I'm fine," he muttered again stubbornly, and she snorted.

"Yeah, of course you are. C'mon - that's as good as I'm gonna get that shoulder without actual bandages. You're sitting up." Sergio gave a bit of a muffled protest that was cut off when she got a hand under his good shoulder and pushed, but he managed to get himself into somewhat of a better sitting position without passing out.

"There are other people..."

"There's enough doctors well enough to take care of them," she said. "They're doing rounds and treating what they can, and then we're getting the hell out of here. For now it's my job to make sure you don't check out on us. We need you."

He considered that thought for a few moments. She said that sort of thing so matter-of-factly, with no hesitation at all, he couldn't even really begin to think she might not mean it. He was silent when she moved, sitting behind him and letting him lean back against her, and still silent when she put one arm across his chest to hold the small bundle of cloth onto his shoulder - hell knew where she'd gotten that in the first place, but that didn't seem important.

"Do me a favor," he finally managed, watching the movement in the still-settling smoke almost without seeing it. One hand went unconsciously to her arm and he realized that this kind of contact was definitely not normal for him. "Stay alive."

Anana seemed to scoff a little and he felt her rest her chin on the top of his head. "That's the plan."

"Well Ilaria doesn't care much for other people's plans." He let out a breath, trying to ignore the headache and the feeling of the burns that was now making itself a little more known. "You need me to avoid them, but I need you to..." To what? Stay human? Not devolve back into survival mode? Avoid going on some kind of killing spree, because hell if that didn't seem like a good idea right now? None of those sounded particularly pleasant.

The woman seemed to think that over a bit before nodding briefly. "Like I said - you're not getting out of this so easily. We'll be fine."

"You don't know that."

"No," she agreed, "but I do know how to out-stubborn one of the harshest places the world has. These people may have the resources, but something tells me they're going to underestimate us - thinking we died in that explosion will be a good start."

There were a few people shouting now and he could hear the sound of a snowmobile's engine turning over somewhere outside. They needed to get out of this place, the sooner the better, but for now she was right; Ilaria would presume them dead, at least for a little while. The Scythe seemed to have gotten away so the immediate threat was gone. It was just the upcoming few days that concerned him - and every day afterwards, for that matter.

"Just stay alive," Sergio repeated quietly. "Whatever comes after us, stay alive."

Anana let out a breath and her free hand ran through his hair again. "So long as you return the favor, you've got a deal."

The smoke was still clearing and the piercing Arctic wind was starting to make itself known in the small loading dock. Some people were up and moving, some probably wouldn't move again, and no one had gotten out untouched. There wasn't any way to feel particularly safe at this point - not with what he knew was waiting for all of them out there - but having Anana steady at his back, her own singed hair occasionally being blown into his face, he could manage at least a slightly cautious hope. She knew how to survive out here, he knew how Ilaria operated, and they could get these people far enough off the radar to at least keep them alive.

Hell if he knew what exactly he'd started with this woman, but somehow it seemed like the only thing that almost made sense in whatever they'd been thrown into. What he did know was that his normal survival techniques wouldn't work anymore; there was one more person to worry about now.

Right now, goals could be boiled down to three simple things: keep himself alive, keep Anana alive, and hopefully live to see tomorrow.

Of course, that was easier said than done.


End file.
